


hello heartbreak

by roisale



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: IT'S NOT SHIPPY JUST PAIN, M/M, Multi, kitaiichi damage for the soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roisale/pseuds/roisale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Your tosses are impossible to hit!” Kindaichi snaps at him during practice one day. It’s routine by now, the way ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ used to be. Part of him wonders if it even matters at this point; what’s another missed quick, another reason to break, another way they fall apart?</p><p>Kageyama glares at him, mouth bent into a scowl, and Kindaichi feels like choking under the weight. Kageyama turns around, silent for once, and Kindaichi doesn’t hear him when he says, “You could.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	hello heartbreak

i.i – birds of a feather

 

“It’s the first gymnasium, right?” Kindaichi asks after their classes are over on the first day of junior high. He looks back at Kunimi, who tucks his hands into his pockets before replying.

“Yeah,” Kunimi says quietly. It’s the start of club activities and the two of them stand outside the gym building. Kindaichi clutches his application form like a lifeline, takes a deep breath to settle his nerves, and slides the door open. 

This is how their story goes: Kindaichi and Kunimi are twelve years old when they meet a boy named Kageyama Tobio under the pale wash of artificial lighting and bright-eyed sincerity. He’s straightforward and earnest and absolutely, positively brilliant and Kindaichi means it, he really does, when he tells him, “Let’s work hard together!”

Kageyama nods, solemn, but his mouth spreads slowly in a tiny smile, so small it’d be almost too easy to miss. Kindaichi catches it, if barely, in the last few moments before it fades. 

The first week is easy – drills to keep them in shape, practice matches against each other to get the feel of the game. Kindaichi falls into the tempo of Kageyama’s plays with new familiarity, and if he’s lagging a split second behind, well, that’s okay; they’ve got three years to work it out and become proper teammates, after all. Kageyama never looks happier than when he’s on the court and Kindaichi thinks he could definitely get used to the sharp bite against the palm of his hand when he spikes one of Kageyama’s tosses.

“That was,” Kindaichi says after practice one day in between wheezy breaths, lungs working hard to meet demand. He looks at Kageyama, feeling the irrepressible grin on his face before his mind catches up and tells him so. “That was great! Your tosses are amazing!”

Kageyama blinks, and the line of his lips curves up just barely, just so. “Thank you,” he says, tilting his chin up to meet his eyes, like he’s trying to make sure Kindaichi knows he means it. 

Kindaichi laughs, and hands him a water bottle, tapping it lightly against the back of Kageyama’s wrist.

“I’m just calling it like it is.”

 

 

i.ii – you were my safe zone

 

“You like yogurt, right?”

Kageyama opens his eyes, recognizing that he’d fallen asleep on his desk sometime between third period and lunch. He frowns against the wood and sits up straight, rubbing at the sore spot on his cheek. 

Kindaichi, standing in front of his seat, hands him a small carton and smiles, a little shy. “Kunimi and I are having lunch together and I was wondering if you wanted to join, since we’re all first-years in the club and all.”

“Oh,” Kageyama says, taking the drink tentatively, “Thank you. I’d like that.” He looks at Kindaichi, considering possible reasons as to why he had asked him, but he gets to his feet and follows him out of the classroom anyway. They don’t say much on the way out the building, and Kageyama studies Kindaichi’s back with discreet curiosity.

“I’m back,” Kindaichi says to Kunimi, who’s slouched against a tree trunk and taking a small catnap in the mid-morning sun. 

“Hey,” Kunimi says, keeping his eyes closed.

“Hello,” Kageyama says back, cautious.

Kindaichi sighs, and pokes Kunimi’s shoulder. “Kageyama, relax. Kunimi’s always like this.”

Kunimi yawns. “Pretty much.”

“So did you hear? We’re supposed to have a practice match against Chidoriyama soon,” Kindaichi says, flopping down in a tangle of skinny limbs, all bony elbows and knees. “They’re a championship school, too, I think.” Kageyama takes this opportunity to sit down opposite Kindaichi, forming a little triangle with Kunimi as the third point. 

“It’s not like we’ll be playing,” Kunimi points out. “We’re first years.”

Kindaichi looks a bit put out for a moment, but regains momentum. “It’s still exciting! Did you know, apparently they have a really good libero? I hear he’s a second year, but he’s been a regular since his first. Isn’t that cool?”

Kageyama nods and sticks the straw into his yogurt drink, hoping Kindaichi won’t mind that he’s not exactly the chatty type. Judging from the way he keeps up the conversation despite Kunimi’s vaguely disinterested responses, he’s probably used to it. 

He takes a measured sip and relaxes.

 

 

i.iii – good enough

 

“Oh, they’re holding the award ceremony,” Kindaichi says, peering over the edge of the stands. “It’s pretty awesome that Oikawa won best setter.”

Oikawa steps off the podium and veers towards Iwaizumi, shoulders visibly stiff even from where they’re sitting. Kunimi raises an eyebrow. “He doesn’t look all that happy about it, actually.”

Kindaichi shrugs. “Well, we _did_ lose.”

Kageyama’s hands are folded in his lap and his mouth pulls flat. He’s too focused to notice Kunimi’s sidelong glance, and his nose scrunches up, the way it does when he’s dissatisfied with something.

Kindaichi faces Kageyama. “I guess that means you’re our official setter next year, huh? We’re counting on you!”

Kageyama tightens his hands. “I’ll do my best.”

 

 

ii.i – people always did tell me to cut stray threads

 

In their second year, Kindaichi hits another growth spurt and Kunimi’s next; they tower over Kageyama when they walk and the shadows they cast stretch long and thin on the pavement.

“You’ll catch up soon,” Kindaichi offers on their way into the gym, holding the door open for him and Kunimi.

But by the time Kageyama stops having to crane his neck to look at them, it already feels too late – he doesn’t talk to them much these days, anyway.

Kageyama starts to change: it’s not even that he smiles less because he hadn’t smiled much in the first place. And somewhere in the months that pass, the shape of his face becomes a little less soft, a little more forbidding; worn down by the same pressure that marks his departure from childhood. After practice they walk back to the lockers in two instead of three, and if Kunimi looks behind him, he sees Kageyama standing alone behind the net, dwarfed by a high ceiling and an empty court. The sound of jump serves follows them out, and the echoes don’t stop after the door closes.

He stops looking, eventually.

Kindaichi doesn’t.

The two of them make their way home together, talking quietly like they’re trying to fill the empty space with aimless chatter, and it shouldn’t feel wrong, but it does.

They all want to get better, but you can’t get better without growing up some, and Kunimi thinks that maybe they grew up in all the wrong ways.

 

 

iii.i – and truth be told, i never was yours

The ball doesn’t even hit the floor before Kageyama turns on Kindaichi, spitting brimstone. “What the _hell_ was that?”

Kindaichi doesn’t say anything, the tips of his fingers stinging raw and bitterness curling tight in his stomach.

One of the first years cringes. “Kageyama’s... kind of harsh, isn’t he?”

“He doesn’t mean it,” a second year says, trying to soothe the group of terrified underclassmen. 

Kunimi overhears them talking by the bench and scoffs. “Of course he does.” 

So no, there’s at least one thing that hasn’t changed about him; but then again, honesty doesn’t exactly leave much room for misinterpretation. That’s okay; Kindaichi can’t remember the last time it hurt, anyway. The words stopped feeling like whiplash a long time ago. 

Because the more Kageyama demands, the less Kindaichi can keep up; Kageyama orders him to _jump higher move faster hit harder_ and Kindaichi runs himself ragged trying to keep up. Theoretically, he ought to be able to spike his tosses. Kageyama’s good, irritatingly so, and he’s far from stupid, just selfish. But Kindaichi hesitates before he jumps, every single time, and Kageyama _knows_ this, sending the ball to where he should be, to where he _would_ be if he’d just trust Kageyama and _jump_.

And if that’s what Kageyama wants, Kindaichi can’t give it to him, not now, not anymore. Trust is the kind of thing that goes both ways, and high expectations don’t count.

He starts calling him ‘king’, if only to get another chance at the lost look on his face; wide-eyed and uncertain at first, but even that disappears, and after a while the only thing he sees is the tense line of his back under a heavy mantle of oppression.

Funny thing is, Kindaichi doesn’t even realize he’s the one tying the cape around Kageyama’s shoulders.

 

 

iii.ii – sticks & stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me

 

“Your tosses are impossible to hit!” Kindaichi snaps at him during practice one day. It’s routine by now, the way ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ used to be. Part of him wonders if it even matters at this point; what’s another missed quick, another reason to break, another way they fall apart?

Kageyama glares at him, mouth bent into a scowl, and Kindaichi feels like choking under the weight. Kageyama turns around, silent for once, and Kindaichi doesn’t hear him when he says, “You could.”

 

 

iii.iii – if you please

 

Kunimi can already tell he won’t reach the ball in time for a dig, so he slows to a stop just inside the court boundaries, and it bounces against the flooring a split second later. 

Kageyama whips around to glare at him. “Chase after the ball until it hits the floor!”

“There wasn’t any need,” Kunimi says flatly. “Nobody could have gotten that.” Kindaichi comes up next to him, looking ready to intervene.

“That doesn’t mean you can slack off,” Kageyama says, his voice low and harsh. 

Kunimi makes an annoyed sound in his throat, meeting Kageyama’s dark glower without hesitation. “I’m not going to waste energy on something pointless.”

In the end, he doesn’t have to.

 

 

iii.iv – your crown is a noose (and betrayal is the lever)

 

Kitagawa Daiichi loses in the semi-finals even after benching Kageyama. Kunimi knows what that means, knows it like the way he knows outcomes and possibilities; really, it’d been coming all along, a penultimate kind of refined brutality. Whether a culmination or a fall out, in the end, it’s just one more excuse for regicide, and Kunimi doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

 

 

iv.i – flock together

 

“Good to see you again,” Iwaizumi says on their first day of high school. He glances at the small distance separating them, almost automatically. “So Kageyama didn’t come?”

Kindaichi doesn’t respond immediately, so Kunimi fills in for him. “No, he didn’t,” he says simply, and hands him both of their club applications.

Iwaizumi takes the papers without comment and turns towards the gym entrance. “The other first-years are already inside, so just head in.”

Their new teammates are gathered around the bench, and Kindaichi nods at them, saying, “Let’s work hard together.”

And they do, but at the end of the day, it’s just the two of them walking home again, just like always.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> it was gonna be 'hello heartbreak, i never knew you came in thirds' but that was Too Long of a title
> 
> shoutout to sam for rereading this 10,000 times


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